Happy 2015!

The day after I wrapped up the Holiday Faves Mini Class, Ryan and I hopped on a plane for his first ever trip to California. Not going to lie, I was a bit nervous about flying with him by myself for his first flight but he handled it like a champ, much to the delight of his fellow passengers. I’d say his cute smiling at everyone definitely earned him some points, as well as paying for him to have his own seat and carseat so both mom and baby were comfy.

Right before I left for California, I finally got around to designing our holiday/baby announcement card. Adam was kind enough to address and mail all of them while I was away and since we’re hearing from family and friends that they’re arriving in their mailboxes, I thought I’d share what I came up with here as well.

I’d originally planned for them to be Christmas cards but when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to opt for New Years cards instead – and I actually like them much better! I may just decide to be a New Years card family from now on because I’m a procrastinating rebel like that.

Because I’d been trying to get the cards printed and sent before I left on Dec 30th (which didn’t happen), I had them printed locally at Staples, which I don’t recommend. The quality of the cards themselves is actually nice – they’re slightly glossy on the front and then cardstock on the back.

But the actual printing of the images is hit or miss.

I ordered two sets of 25 cards within maybe 10 minutes of each other because there was no way for me to add more cards to my original order and the one set of cards came out WAY more red than the other even though I uploaded the exact same file. There were also some cards where it seemed pretty clear their printer was running out of ink but they didn’t bother to reprint them or anything.

I should have probably complained but I was in a hurry and there was a long line and only one guy who didn’t seem to really care so I figured we could make them work. But I kind of wish I would have just ordered them through someone online and paid the rush shipping instead.

The design itself was inspired by a couple of different holiday/baby cards I found on Pinterest. I knew I wanted something clean and graphic rather than scrapbook-y but I did end up adding a striped glitter paper from Kristin Cronin-Barrow as the background to add some pizazz to the back.

All of the photos were taken by Amy of Captured Simplicity and I can’t even tell you how fun it is to have photos of us that don’t involve a timer or a long-armed selfie shot. This one of Ryan grabbing at the sock is one of my favorite because the grin and the look on his face is just so him.

I admit, part of me felt a bit lame sending out a birth announcement six months after the fact but I actually think it turned out pretty cute in the end. And I felt rather smart using the wording to tie everything together, almost seems like it was intentional and not just a result of my procrastinating on getting it done.

2014 was definitely an amazing year around here and I’m eager to see what 2015 has in store for our little family of three!

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